Life in South Florida

Recently I took a week long trip down south to Sunny Isles Beach to visit some friends and bake in the sun for a while. While there I ran into some car trouble so I had to get a rental car for a few days, the guys at this local car rental hooked me up with a great deal so props to them. Just had to get that plug out of the way before I forgot. Now on with the story! It would have been hard to miss the craft beer talk about town lately. Between the local success of Funky Buddha and the news that Sunny Isles Beach is being considered as the new location for the their new brewery, it does seem as if the area is making steady strides in playing catch up to popular beer locales. But is Sunny Isles Beach really an underrated beer city? Call me slightly jaded, but as a traveler who has covered many US cities, it seems every where has become a “foodie” and “beer” destination seemingly overnight. There also seems to be miles of tourist “trails” to go along with them. But I’ll back up a little: As far as tourist destinations go, I’ll be the first to admit that craft beer and Sunny Isles Beach seem to be an ideal match. The Sunny Isles Beach craft beer scene has indeed been growing and shows no signs of slowing down. In this case I’m all for tapping that local keg. (Although I don’t think I’ll be consuming anywhere near the 48 ounce per day limit – and does craft beer even come out of kegs? How do they get it into the cans and bottles? I guess I need to go visit Funky Buddha Brewery to find out how it’s all done for sure.) If you want to support the growth of the local craft beer industry in a way other than just drinking it, be sure to follow this page started by a group of local beer enthusiasts who are trying to encourage Stone Brewing Company to make Sunny…

At the end of 2014 I had just undergone my first real surgery (gallbladder removal) and I used to weight around 182 pounds by the time I left the hospital. I don’t know what happened in the next few months, but by the time I really started looking to realize I gained weight, I was at 205 and in denial. Andy and Craig mentioned several times just how much weight I had gained. I let it keep going for a little while longer and then one day, out of absolutely nowhere, I just started running. I don’t know if you have ever decided to just “try” and go out running, but it’s by far one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. To see just how little you can do in the beginning is disappointing and downright embarrassing. The pace you go, how heavy you feel and just the amount of noise you make trying to gasp for more air is terrible. The hot and humid South Florida weather didn’t help either. I could have let all of that stop me and just give up. I, however, did the exact opposite. I didn’t care how much I ran, as long as I went out and did it. In the first few weeks I used to run nothing but a quarter mile. After being able to run more than half a mile in a row, I amped it up and just ran 1 whole mile. I waited until I was able to run a mile in under 12 minutes until I amped it up and started running 2 miles. Over the weeks I started seeing some really great progress and I made a promise to myself that I would be able to run 5 miles a day by the end of the year. And I did it. January 30th, 2015 I completed my 500th mile. My Nike+ log is actually very awesome to look at. In those few months I lost a little over 40 pounds (I’m at around 163 right now) and have started my next fitness goal –…

Usually when you hear a good idea, the first thing you do is think of necessary features in order for that idea to work. You probably jot down (or think) of all the things you want this project to do and have. Most of the time, you’ll over feature the project. It’s ok; we’ve all done it. Up until recently, when new ideas were thrown at me, I would write down everything I wanted the project to do and would spend hours and hours building it. Most of these projects ended up nowhere. As it turns out, when you add too many features, your to do list becomes bigger and bigger. When your to do list gets too big, you tend to get unmotivated and end up never finishing. Even if you do finish, you won’t be 100% satisfied with your end product. Had I been smart back then, I could’ve used my time for better things. It turns out that all I had to do was think in simpler, more realistic terms. The first thing you have to realize is that your product is probably not going to make it. That’s depressing to hear and you probably hate me now, but let’s just think for a minute. If you spend all of your time working on these unnecessary features now, you’ll never know if your actual base concept works. Why not try it out first? Finding out whether or not people are interested in your core product should be your #1 priority. To see what you really need, just ask yourself “What do I need to have in order to see if this idea will take off?”. Look at it realistically – don’t dream of things. When you’re realistic about your idea, you’ll find your set of core features a lot faster. When you have something out there that people are using and that you’re getting feedback on, you’ll know what you need to add. It’s always best to add things to your project when you know what people are actually using it for. Look at Twitter for example;…